Lynching as Psychological Turmoil in Selected African American Plays

Abstract

This paper intends to investigate in depth a number of selected plays by African American playwrights and trace the references to the psychological impact of lynching on the black individuals as well as its impact on the society as a whole. The plays include Joseph Mitchell's Son- Boy (1928), Georgia Johnson's two plays Sunday Morning in the South (1925) and Blue-Eyed Black Boy (1930), Angelina Weld Grimké's Rachel (1916), and Mary Burrill's Aftermath (1919). The lynching scenes in the plays under discussion conveyed a great deal of the emotional impact of lynching on the black community.